the Source of all things, the Creator, the Fountain of being and of life. The Son is spoken of as the manifestation of that Being in Jesus Christ; and the Holy Spirit is spoken of as a spiritual influence, proceeding from the Father and Son, dwelling in the hearts of believers, as the source of their life, - the idea of God seen in causation, in reason, and in conscience, as making the very life of the soul itself." "There are these three revelations of God, and we know of no others. They are distinct from each other in form, but the same in essence. They are not merely three names for the same thing; but they are real personal manifestations of God, real subsistences, since he is personally present in all of them." "It is the same God who speaks in each, but he says something new each time. He reveals a new form of his being. He shows us not the same order and aspect of truth in each manifestation, but wholly different aspects." "It teaches that God is immanent in nature, in Christ, and in the soul." "So that, when we study the mysteries and laws of nature, we are drawing near to God himself and looking into his face. When we see Christ, we see God who is in Christ; and when we look into the solemn intuitions of the soul, the monitions of conscience, and the influences which draw our hearts to goodness, we are meeting and communing with God." There seems to be some confusion in the language here used, as to whether Dr. Clarke makes the Trinity consist in the three aspects of God which are spoken of, or in the three modes by which he is manifested; also whether the Father is to be considered one of the manifestations of Deity, or as the entire Being who is manifested. The meaning, however, that we get from his words, as a whole, is not that there is any real distinction in the Divine nature otherwise than of its attributes, but that the one eternal person of the godhead is revealed to us in the three ways of nature, Christ, and the soul; and that, through each of these ways, we get a view of something in him which is different from what we get in the others. Now, there can be no question as to the general facts on which this reconciliation is based. God is manifested in nature, in Christ, and in the soul; and it is the same Person who is manifested in all these different ways. But is this really the vital truth which underlies the Church doctrine of the Trinity? Is it the source from which it grew, and the reason for which it is held? Or is it an after-thought, made to explain away its logical difficulties, and make it more acceptable to the thinking mind? The objection starts up at once, that, whatever truth the view itself may have, it is not, in the proper sense of the words, a truth of Orthodoxy. It is not the kind of trinity in which the Orthodox churches believe, and which they have clung to for so many ages. The doctrine, as generally held, is that God is revealed in Scripture as three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, - having special points of difference; and that these three together are one God. Even Sabellianism, which comes nearest the view of Dr. Clarke, makes the distinction consist in the relations of God to the world as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, rather than in the modes by which he is revealed. There is no prevailing statement or conception of the Trinity which lays any stress on his being manifested in any separate modes. Hence, as an explanation of the vitality there is in the Church doctrine, it entirely fails. Then, in regard to the view itself, it does not do full justice to the words of Scripture. Christ says, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." The Father, however, is a term which denotes not an attribute or manifestation or aspect of God, but the Eternal Being himself. It is the name of all he is; the word which expresses the highest conception of him the human mind has ever reached. And it is hardly possible that Christ meant to say otherwise than that he was a revelation of the entire Deity. So with the words of Paul in Colossians, "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily." What other meaning can they have, than that Christ was a manifestation, not merely of one part of God, different from what we have in nature and in the soul, but of the whole God, of his wisdom and power, and justice and quickening influence, as well as of his love and mercy and redeeming grace? And, in general, the idea of a Trinity of manifestations through nature, Christ, and the soul is as foreign to the phraseology of the Bible as that of a Trinity of persons. It is not a view which is corroborated by any thing which is seen in the world around us. The difference there is in the manifestations of God through nature, Christ, and the soul is not so much of kind as degree. It is not so much a different, but a larger, view of him that we get in Christ, over what we find in nature and the soul. Is it in Christ only that he is seen as Father and Friend? Have the sparrows and the lilies nothing to say of his care and tenderness? Has the Spring no lesson of his life-giving power? The golden sheaves and the bending fruit of Autumn, do they show us nothing of his friendship and paternal love? There is no real ground for the words, "He shows us not the same order and aspect of the truth in each manifestation, but wholly different aspects." Christ only speaks in clear, articulate words what the soul whispers faint and low, and what nature is striving, with its poor dumb lips but its speaking face, evermore to tell. But the gravest objection to this view, as containing in any way the vital truth of the Trinity, is that the division of the ways in which God manifests himself into the three of nature, Christ, and the soul, is entirely arbitrary. What ground is there for saying, "There are these three revelations of him, and we know of no others"? Are not the revelations of himself in history, in society, in the moral order of the universe, as distinct from those of nature, Christ, and the soul, as these are from each other? Is he not revealed as Providence, Legislator, Judge, and Ruler with the same distinctness that he is as Creator, Redeemer, and Spiritual Quickener? And are not the embodiments of his truth and justice, in principles and laws, ways in which we know him, as truly as those of his power and life in nature and the soul? Yea, what ground is there for calling any of these manifestations one? Are not the modes of revealing himself in the beauty of the flower and the sweep of the hurricane, as much two as those in Christ and in the common soul? And, in the creation of our intellectual and moral and emotional life, do we not see him in forms which are quite as different as in those of our natural and spiritual being? There are a thousand, nay, there are countless things of which it may be said, "he speaks in each, but says something new each time," "reveals a new form of his being," "shows us not the same order and aspect of truth, but wholly different aspects," just as truly as it is said of these which are now taken to make up the Trinity. The selection of these merely is like the old notion, that there must be four elements and only seven planets, or like dividing the stars into any fixed number of constellations. The truth is, the whole universe is a manifestation of God; and there are as many modes of this manifestation as there are objects in it, rising in clearness, one above another, and culminating at last, not in three orders, but in the one Christ, "the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person." No: we believe the vital truth of the Trinity lies at once nearer the surface, and is wider reaching, than this idea of three manifestations. There is one principle, one great law, which extends throughout all religions, just as there is through all the complicity of the natural heavens, explaining alike their motions and forms. It is the same truth which underlies fetichism, polytheism, gnosticism, dualism, Mariolatry, and pantheism, a key which unlocks not only the mystery of three persons in the Godhead, but all the multiplied forms in which the Deity has ever been conceived of. It consists in this. The human soul is made, in its very nature, to want in its worship the whole circle of Divine perfections, the allmighty, gracious, good, and fair, - to want it both as an object of contemplation and as one with which to commune. This want, indeed, is very far from being one of which it is permanently conscious; but it is always in it as a controlling force, at once leading it to worship, and shaping its conceptions of what is worshipped. The spirit, even in its lowest and most grovelling state, will not be satisfied with a limited divine nature, with that which embodies only one or two or three of the attributes of Deity. It craves them all in some form or other. And if they are not presented to it in the knowledge of one being or one person, then inevitably it is led to seek after and adore them in others. It has been a question with theologians, whether the earliest form of natural religion was that of monotheism or polytheism. It would seem, however, both from history and on the general grounds of what the condition of human nature was in the earliest ages, that man had a countless number of deities, and deities not far away but resident with him on the earth. Brute animals, plants, the elements, things most obvious to the senses, were the ones in which he first saw the divine element. No one of these, however, could present him with all the attributes of God. The bull was a manifestation only of strength; the owl, of wisdom; the serpent, of eternity; the sun, of life-giving energy. Hence, in order to get all which the heart craved for in its worship, it was necessary to have, not one or two, but a vast number of deities. Fetichism, in some of its aspects, is false and degrading enough; and yet to the larger view there was a grand reason in it. It testifies to the aspirations of our nature for a divinity, such as could be found in no one object of earth, not the greatest. Its truth was, that God is not far away, but manifest in the most familiar objects around us; its false. hood, the very same that we find now in the Orthodox con. ception of Christ, - that that which manifests God is God himself. But men cannot be satisfied always with the worship of animals and things. These are seen to be limited and imperfect expressions of what they want. Many different things present themselves as the types of wisdom, strength, beauty, and goodness. The tendency is to idealize, to combine, to get at something better and fairer than any visible object, the unseen attribute of divinity which lies behind them, and give that a local habitation and a name. Men are deified. The various powers, first of the material then of the spiritual world, are supposed to have a personal head; 1 |